Gluten Free Oat & Honey Bread

So if you’ve been reading along, you are no doubt in awe (like me) that I am able to sit and actually write a blog post! The girls are busy (one is next to me “studying” a map and the other is currently occupied by a toy cash register) and life is good. My Love is even able to catch his breath for a moment. (I’m sure swearing off all household repairs has something to do with it… LOL)

In the last several weeks, I’ve been working on a bread recipe. One that would allow me to use the relatively cheaper gluten free flours (saving money), still use whole grains with limited starch, and not have so many esoteric ingredients that reading it would feel like a study in chemistry. Well, okay, I did use xanthan gum. (No, I’m not giving up gums.) I find it really helps the texture and holds the bread together. In fact, once I left it out by mistake. Oy vey, what a crumbly mess I had on the counter.

I think gluten free bread baking can FEEL intimidating to people. But really? I don’t think it is that bad. Yes, you will have breads that fail. Breads can come out crumbly or dry or dense – or, well, let’s be honest – any litany of maladies can plague your baking. However, gluten free breads are rather forgiving in my mind. Once I figure out a ratio of total flours:fats:liquids, I’ve been fairly happy. My stand-by loaf of bread used to be my Pepita-Powered Bread (made with green pumpkin seeds – aka Pepitas). But I don’t always have the pepitas on hand (and I have to go to the Food Co-op to buy them) and when I do have them on hand, I like to use them in granola as well. In a recipe-battle for the pepitas, the granola usually wins. I just don’t eat that much bread anymore but granola? YUM!

This bread is super moist. It holds up well. In fact, I’ve made it on the weekend and STILL have been able to eat a sandwich with it on Wednesday WITHOUT toasting it. I actually just polished off the last loaf I made (last Saturday afternoon while the girls napped) this morning for breakfast. I *love* being able to eat peanut butter toast for breakfast. And my girls had the last slice for a PB&J sammie at lunch (not toasted!).

If you are not gluten free and are making this bread for someone who is, please be sure to use CERTIFIED gluten free oats. Other than that, the other ingredients should be easy to find. (There is even a spice house in my town that will sell xanthan gum by the teaspoon/measurement – hopefully this trend will catch on. Otherwise, borrow a couple teaspoons from someone if you don’t plan to bake GF because of all the ingredients – that price tag will kill you. My only consolation is that one bag of xanthan gum lasts FOREVER – and stores easily in an air-tight container in the cupboard. Really. It takes a LONG time to use up a whole bag – even in this house where I like to bake!)

Just an FYI – I’m a whisk-it-up and scoop girl for my measuring. Meaning, I whisk through my tub of flour (especially potato starch which seems to become QUITE heavy/compacted over time) and then I scoop and measure out my flour. Yes, weighing flours is more accurate and I gladly weigh when making things from European cookbooks or from other sources, but I guess you just can’t kick the old-school scoop measuring out of me. I don’t know my equivalents to convert my recipes easily from the top of my head and scooping is easier for the kids to help me bake the bread as well. I love having kitchen helpers. Now if only their clean-up didn’t mean a bigger mess.

I used brown rice flour (superfine or regular), certified gluten free oats, and a small amount of starch. There are several substitutions that you can easily make without sacrificing the texture of the bread. Here are the ones I have done:

FOR Brown Rice Flour replace with equal amounts of:

regular brown rice flour

superfine brown rice flour

white rice flour (NOT sweet rice flour)

sorghum flour

millet flour

a combination of these to make the same total

FOR Certified Oats (not quick cook): replace with equal amount of

quinoa flakes (this will alter the flavor)

FOR the starch use:

potato starch (makes a slightly more dense bread but very moist)

tapioca starch (makes a moist bread with a bit more springy quality)

cornstarch (useable but not recommended – adds a bit of a filmy aftertaste to me)

Preheat oven to 350F. (I do leave my oven on preheat when allowing the bread to rise because our kitchen can be cold. If your kitchen is not, leave the preheating until after your bread is nearly risen.)

Heat your water to 105-110F. Mix in your honey and yeast. Set aside to proof. (About 1o minutes)

Add eggs, melted butter and yeast-proof mixture. Mix together on slow until well blended.

Mix on medium-high for 3-5 minutes.

Oil the bottom and sides of your bread (standard size) pan (I use olive oil and a basting brush). Pour bread mixture into oiled pan and smooth out the top with a wet 7. spatula. Set aside to allow the bread to rise. It will rise over the top edges of the pan.

Once risen, pop the bread into the oven. Bake to an internal temperature of 205F – about 25-35 minutes, depending on your oven.

Once your temperature is right, use a spatula to slide along the sides of the bread pan to loosen the bread. Remove the bread from the pan by inverting. Allow the bread to cool on its side on a cooling rack for 20 minutes + before slicing.

Store in wrapped in foil and in an airtight container after cooling completely on the counter or in your refrigerator.

I hope this bread recipe is as delightfully easy for you as it has been for me. Seven loaves later and it is now our preferred bread. Even our little ones (who are not bread eaters by choice completely) enjoy this one for the tiny bites that they will take.

Well, I hear the girls gearing up for some interactive time.. the wind is blowing and the rain is coming down. Winter is here early. At least we have bread to keep the house toasty and smelling good now!

kate this is brilliant. i’m going to make it this week. i keep a simplified pantry and try to avoid a lot of the usual GF ingredients for more simpler, not as refined one’s. been meaning to play with a bread recipe but lack the time… stoked to try this!

Kate-Thanks so much for this wonderful recipe! It is wonderful and some of the best gf bread I’ve tasted! My husband I were doing some price comparison tonight on this bread compared to the gf bread I typically buy in the freezer section and to buy the same amount for bread that your recipe makes, the frozen bread would cost me $7.13 more than yours. Plus, your recipe makes my house smell wonderful!
A question for you, how many slices were you able to get out of the loaf? Did you find that they were thicker than that of store bought bread, or were you able to get them thinner?

Also, has anyone tried this with a bread machine? I don’t have one, but would be intrigued to find out how it worked on one.

Wonderful – glad it is working well for you too. And yes, the price difference has kept me baking it too.

To be honest, I haven’t counted slices. I usually slice as needed. I believe I have gotten between 12-16? Depends on what I was making. I have been able to make slices about as thick/thin as a store-bought loaf once is cools well.

I have not yet tried this with a bread machine – so I’ve got no tips there. Still have to figure that out.

YES I’ve tried this in my Cuisinart Bread machine and it came out wonderful! Looked just like the picture. My bread machine has a gluten free setting. You’ll need to put the ingredients in the order according to your brand of bread machine (for example: my says to put all liquids in first, then dry ingredients and then yeast on top- making sure yeast doesn’t touch any liquid) then I set it for the gluten free option, set it at 1 &1/2 lb loaf and medium darkness and it was wonderful, moist, crusty on the outside and nice texture. My husband said it was delicious. I did have to substitute about 3/4 of the ratio of sorghum flour (only because I had so little brown rice flour) but it was great. Thanks for posting

Just made this. So so tasty. Mine didn’t rise above the loaf pan though and I let it rise for about an hour. Should I use more yeast next time? I am not sure where you are but maybe a higher altitude then me.

Yeah, my yeast proofed nicely, I did the let it rise in a 170F oven and my pan is 8 1/2 x 4 1/2. Hmm, I guess I will have to try again. It is so tasty so I am determined to get it right. Thanks for you quick reply. I can’t wait to try some your other recipes.

I used a old-school bread pan. I’m sorry you are having trouble getting the height! Sometimes I wish I could figure out all the variables of my kitchen in order to really figure it all out. I do let it rise a long time (sometimes in a warm oven…sometimes under a “plant light” – HA! – because my kitchen can be cold. =(
-Kate

Just made this…. OH MY GOSH!!! This is SO good! Worked perfectly; I don’t have a mixer, so I just kneaded it by hand. It tastes incredible. My 6 year old and her friend loved it (they aren’t GF). Cannot wait to give a slice of warm buttered bread to the friend’s mother (who is GF) when she picks up her daughter.

They’re spending Christmas with us (GF Christmas! Food issues won’t be an issue because both families have the same diet!), and I love the idea of dinner rolls…

Am a little wary. Have been baking with yeast for years – not all gluten free but packages of yeast (instant, bread or traditional) come in 2 1/4 tsp quantity. Your recipe sounds wonderful but it states 1 1/2 TABLESPOON Yeast – that’s 5 teaspoons. Is that correct or maybe fresh yeast or flakes of yeast. Please clarify as anxious to make the bread but don’t want a mess in the oven. – Babs

Farz–I don’t know if you have your answer to the egg free question, but this website, foodallergies.com has substitutes listed for the various things you might want to make–scroll down and you will see there is a sub for 1-2 eggs in baked goods–baking powder, water and oil and the explanations for why it works. Because this is a recipe for a wholegrain, wheatless bread, you can up the nutrition even further by subbing flax gel–will add a nuttier taste to the bread. There is a lot of good information on this site about subbing for eggs (here is the link): http://foodallergies.about.com/od/recipes/tp/half_dozen_egg_subs.htm

My wife and I have been gluten free for about 10 days – not medically strict but doing well at avoiding glutens. I’m pretty sure my eczema is clearing up! Anyway, just made my first loaf with this recipe – and I am a decent cook but NOT a baker by any means – and it is darned good! My wife LOVES peanut butter toast too and she feels she has been saved from the brink of despair! Thank you so much! Has anyone tried a good “white bread” gluten free? I’m thinking of trying a potato bread recipe or two…

Adam, don’t know if you’ve had a reply to this or tried it, but I have tried different gf bread recipes that say you can leave the dough in the fridge for a couple of days–they are tasty, but I find that they are denser and don’t rise as much. Makes sense–with no gluten, there is a tendency for baked goods to seep the resultant gas from the yeast out of the dough/batter if it sets too long. If you like your bread on the dense side, then this is perfectly fine to do. If, like me, you like your bread lighter and higher as this recipe is, then maybe, to answer the question of “do ahead”, you might want to mix all your dry ingredients together ahead of time and seal in a plastic zipper bag along with a laminated copy of the recipe so you can whip up a batch of dough fairly quickly. Just a thought…=)

I recently added oats back in to my diet after being GF and oat free for 5 years. I made this tonight w/ sorghum in place of the brown rice flour and I ground the oats in the food processor first. I used a 9 x 5 pan. It came out wonderfully! Rose beautifully and did not collapse! Thank you!!!

This is the best gluten free bread recipe I’ve come across. I have multiple food intolerances, so I subbed millet flour for the brown rice flour, olive oil for the butter, and left out the sugar. It was splendid! The texture came out kind of like an English muffin, so needless to say, it made great toast!

Question for you: we made this and I did half a loaf to just make sure we’d like it. Did it in a smaller bread pan so the size would be correct. It raised fine, but ours turned out light brown, not darker like yours although the temperature of the bread internally was correct. It also fell apart really easily, especially after cooling off. Do you think it needed to bake longer? Otherwise all ingredients were the same except for subbing coconut oil for butter. Any suggestions?Thanks

If it sinks – it’s definitely in need of further baking.
To be honest, I’m not sure the coconut oil should have changed anything.
I’m sorry! I haven’t had a “bad” loaf come with this recipe – maybe my oven is running hotter than yours?

Okay, so here’s the revised for me: I found that a glass pan won’t get the bread brown and seems to make it dryer and more crumbly – so no glass! I did re-try in metal and did a small loaf and some mini muffins and the texture and color are much better. We found the taste to be too ‘yeasty’ so we reduced the yeast to half of what your recipe calls for and prefer the taste and aroma much better. We’ve been using a combo of sorghum, tapioca, guar gum and coconut oil for subs from your original. As long as its in metal, it seems to be more like your pictures. Hope this helps for other! Thanks Kate for such a versatile recipe! We like its ease enough that we will continue experimenting (with things like quinoa flakes).

Yummy!!!! Oh, I am just so pleased with this! It is stil a little warm from the oven…simply lovely! For those of you wondering about the eggs, I successfully subbed them out. I used 2T chia seeds with 6T warm water. I let it set up until it was very thick (just did it first while I combined the other ingredients, it was ready when it was time to add wet to dry). Worked beautifully! So, my bread is soft, fluffy and vegan! thanks for the superb recipe. It is in my regular repertoire!

Hi Ruth – Xanthan gum is spendy – but I can find it in the baking aisle of our supermarket. I have never seen it in the bulk foods stores because of the cost and the little amount needed for recipes. One bag will last me a year + – and stores easily in an airtight container in the cupboard. The xanthan gum is needed to replace the gluten in breads – it is what is going to hold the bread together. I don’t recommend making a loaf of bread without it (or a replacement of sorts – some people use guar gum or even psyllium husks – but PLEASE read up on those before choosing as everything has its side effects). Sorry! -Kate

Thanks for a great recipe! It tasted like bread, behaved like bread, was able to sit out like bread. While I like toast, I don’t want to have to toast bread so it holds together for a sandwich…this is perfect!!

Hi there! I’d also love to know how vital the oats is to this loaf. I live in South Africa and the certified GF oats is SUPER expensive here. Could I perhaps use less and sub part of the amount with something else? Looking forward to hearing from you because I can’t wait to try this recipe!

[…] 2. Not eating gluten free bread makes for carb-craving for me. It seems that everyone in my family can easily avoid bread – well, gluten free bread. But I, for some reason, began to feel a serious hankering for peanut butter toast. I caved and bought some Udi’s Bagels (for a cool $8 for one bag. YIKES!) And then I read the caloric count (don’t do it)… and the next week, I made my own bread again. […]